Is it December already? We thank the Lord for having granted us another year to serve Him here in PNG among the Dom people. By His grace we were able to have Matthew, 2 Corinthians, 2 Timothy, 1 and 2 Peter, James, 1, 2, 3 John and Jude translated into Dom, final checked by our consultants and formally released for publication. The Lord willing we hope to have Luke, John, Philemon, Hebrews and Revelation final checked and released for publication in 2013. This will complete the Dom New Testament! Very exciting indeed.
The Lord also gave us the gift of coworkers after over 12 years of working alone. Gerolf and Mailis Wuest officially joined the Dom work and had there house built earlier this year. They went back to their home countries soon afterwards to have their first child and will be back in March of ’13.
We are so thankful for our fellow missionaries who work on the tech support side of things. Last month they made the 4 hour drive to our place and fixed our generator yet again (among other things). Something we could never have done for ourselves. They also painted the Wuests’ house, installed their solar panels and generally made things ready for the Wuests’ return. Many thanks to all of them.
In addition to our weekly Bible studies we have begun a Sunday morning series teaching through the Old Testament. There is much of the Old Testament that our believers have never heard and need to know especially with so much that is referred to in the New Testament from the Old. Jim is really enjoying teaching this series and the large, beautiful Betty Lukins flannel graphs are a big hit with our Christians. One comment from a Dom Christian, “wow, this is strong talk.” All passages that we teach have to be translated into Dom first so that is keeping us busy as well.
Judy is in the middle of a trial literacy class to test the latest revision of Dom orthography (alphabet/writing system). There is one particular aspect of Dom that is hard to represent in writing and we have tried different approaches, but with little success. This latest one hasn’t flown very well either so we are back to the drawing board. It is a technical thing that we won’t bore you with the details of but we feel like we are coming close to finding an answer to this. Truly we must before the time comes to print the Dom New Testament.
It goes without saying that we miss our children and grandchildren especially at this time of the year. All are doing well although our oldest, Ilai, is facing perhaps the biggest challenge of his life right now. So your prayer for him is much appreciated. God knows what his needs are.
We are so thankful for you all who give and pray. Have a blessed holiday season and New Year!